Former cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken was jailed at the Old Bailey today for 18 months after admitting perjury and perverting the course of justice.

He received 18 months for both counts, to run concurrently.

Mr Justice Scott Baker told Aitken: "For nearly four years you wove a web of deceit in which you entangled yourself and from which there was no way out unless you were prepared to come clean and tell the truth. Unfortunately you were not."

The prosecution

Case history

Former Conservative Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken forced himself into a position "where perjury was almost inevitable", the Old Bailey was told today.

He allowed aides of the Saudi royal family to pay his £1,000 hotel bill during a stay at the Paris Ritz in September 1993.

But he was a Government minister in charge of Defence Procurement at the time, and banned from taking hospitality which might place him under an obligation, Mr David Waters QC, prosecuting, told the court.

When the Guardian newspaper got a copy of the bill and challenged Mr Aitken, he told them his wife Lolicia had paid his part of it using money he had given her.

Mr Aitken continued with the same lies when he tried to sue the Guardian and Granada television for libel in the High Court in 1997, said Mr Waters, adding: "In fact, he forced himself into a position were perjury was almost inevitable - inevitable unless he was to admit telling lies years before."

Mr Aitken, 56, who until the last election was Tory MP for Thanet, Kent, for 23 years, and who was in the Cabinet as First Secretary to the Treasury in 1994-5, has admitted committing perjury during the High Court libel action.

He has also admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice by drafting a witness statement for his daughter Victoria, 18, in which she backed up his version of events.

The 16-day libel hearing collapsed after evidence was produced that Mr Aitken's wife and daughter were in Switzerland during the weekend of September 17-19, 1993, when he had said they were in Paris.

Mr Waters said Mr Aitken was arrested in March 1998 and charged in May. Two other charges, alleging perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, had been ordered to lie on file not proceeded with after Mr Aitken denied them at an earlier hearing.

Mr Waters said: "It is fair to say between 1992-95, there is evidence to show that he was a hard-working and conscientious minister." Mr Aitken resigned as a Minister in 1995 to begin the civil proceedings.

Aitken arrives in court

Mr Aitken, wearing a smart blue suit and tie, arrived for today's hearing looking grave. He was met by photographers as he entered the court with a group of friends.

His mother Lady Aitken, actress sister Maria Aitken, and his son William, 16, had arrived moments earlier. With them were his twin daughters Victoria and Alexandra, both 18, and their half-sister Petrina Khashoggi, also 18.

His former boss, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was Defence Secretary at the time Mr Aitken was Defence Procurement Minister between 1992-4, also sat in court, waiting to give evidence.

Mr Aitken spoke only once, replying when asked to confirm that his name was Jonathan William Patrick Aitken: "It is."

Aitken's stay at the Ritz

Mr Aitken had "formed a very close relationship" with Said Ayas, a principal aide to Prince Mohammed, the son of the king of Saudi Arabia, shortly after becoming an MP in 1974. He had also become acquainted with the prince. Mr Ayas and his wife became godparents to the Mr Aitken twins.

Mr Aitken had stayed in a room at the Ritz which had been marked for payment from the account of the "Ayas party" who were staying in two other rooms at the hotel, said Mr Waters.

After The Guardian got a copy of the bill in 1994, it challenged Mr Aitken who replied that his wife had paid his portion of the account in cash.

The cash payment had been made by a woman employed by the Saudis, Mr Waters told the court.

Mr Aitken received information from Ritz president Frank Klein about his bill which showed how he was prepared to "pervert and utilise the information to his own advantage", Mr Waters said.

Mr Klein wrote to Mr Aitken telling him that a cashier recalled "a brunette lady of European aspect, speaking French, paid the cash sum of 4,257 francs in favour of the account of Mr Ayas".

Mr Waters said part of the letter was helpful to Mr Aitken if he was using it dishonestly. Other parts were unhelpful.

The fact that the amount represented only about half of the sum owed and that it was "in favour" or Mr Ayas's account presented a problem to his story.

The letter to the Cabinet Secretary

In a letter to Cabinet Secretary Sir Robin Butler, he cut out the references to the sum and Mr Ayas.

Mr Aitken told him it was his wife who paid the bill, when it was in fact a member of the Saudi entourage.

Sir Robin later met the then Prime Minister, John Major, who said Mr Aitken could dampen the speculation by producing the Ritz bill.

Sir Robin then called Mr Aitken for another meeting and it was then that he produced the bill.

Mr Aitken was forced to change his story and said that Abdul Rahman, another hotel guest and the nephew of Said Ayas, had paid part of his bill by mistake.

Mr Aitken told Sir Robin that he had "squared the circle" and paid Rahman back the other part of his bill.

He described it as an "unfortunate confusion" but the Guardian went ahead with a further article about Mr Aitken's weekend at the Ritz, which prompted the libel writ, according to Mr Waters.

Aitken's family alibi

According to his original false account, Mr Aitken insisted that he had not had business meetings during the weekend at the Ritz.

During cross-examination at the libel trial, he confirmed that his statement contained the "truth and the whole truth", Mr Waters said.

He claimed that his daughter and wife had spent some time in Paris over the weekend but left before he arrived. "The reality being, they had not been there at all," Mr Waters told the court.

The libel trial collapsed when documents obtained from British Airways showed that his family did not go to Paris but flew straight to Switzerland.

Mr Aitken had claimed his wife and daughter had travelled to Aiglon College in Switzerland, where Victoria was due to start school, via Paris, and that he had been delayed on official business and missed them.

He initially claimed he had stayed in Paris spending a quiet weekend, working on his biography of Richard Nixon and meeting family friends.

He then claimed his wife returned to the Ritz on Sunday to meet him after dropping off his daughter at the school, Mr Waters said.

But in fact his wife and daughter were never even in France.

Mr Aitken had claimed that he drafted a false document for his teenage daughter Victoria to back up his story only when inconsistencies emerged in his story.

The judge asked how old Victoria was at the time the statement was drafted because it was a "very grave" feature of the case that Mr Aitken involved his daughter in the crime.

After the collapse of the trial and his subsequent arrest, Mr Aitken made a statement to police admitting that he had lied, Mr Waters said.

In it, he said: "I deeply regret the lies I told and decisions I took to mislead a large number of people. "This is a burden I will have to bear for the rest of my life."

Sir Malcolm confirmed he had entered Parliament as an MP at the same time as Mr Aitken after the 1974 general election.

He said they had not had a close personal relationship but he had visited Mr Aitken's Westminster home on several occasions for meetings of the "Conservative Philosophy Group".

"I thought of him as a very able, intelligent and articulate MP, someone who had very considerable experience and who was always thought of as potential ministerial calibre," he said.

Mr Aitken was in a unique position later as a junior defence minister because of his good contacts with influential Middle East Royal families with whom Britain wanted to do business, Sir Malcolm said.

Sir Malcolm, who volunteered to speak on Mr Aitken's behalf, described him as the most able junior minister he had come across during his years in government.

He was "able and intelligent" but, most of all, his personal contacts in the Middle East turned out to be crucial when it came to protecting Britain's contracts abroad.

He had access to top levels of government in Saudi Arabia and other countries which were usually exclusive to the Prime Minister or senior cabinet members.

Sir Malcolm cited two separate occasions when Mr Aitken used his influence abroad to help persuade Kuwait and Saudi Arabia not to cancel billion-pound contracts with Britain and award them to other countries.

On the second occasion he had set up a meeting between King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and the then premier John Major to stop a £4billion contract going to the United States.

The outcome safeguard many defence jobs in this country, said Sir Malcolm.

He had no reason to believe that Mr Aitken had ever benefited personally from his contacts and the amount of work he did while working for the government left him little time to do anything else. "I felt he was carrying out work in very responsible way," said Sir Malcolm.

"I had no hesitation in telling the Prime Minister that he had been a very impressive minister and the public interest had been extremely well served."

He had contacted Aitken and offered to speak in his defence, he said.

The benefits of a friendship with Prince Mohammed

Sir John Nutting QC said Aitken's close friendship with Prince Mohammed had provided a "valuable link" between the governments of Britain and Saudi Arabia, and it was against this background that he wanted the judge to view the events at the Ritz hotel.

The two men had met when Aitken was still a merchant banker and the director of a company looking after the prince's interests in Britain, Sir John said.

"The defendant and Prince Mohammed had formed, after their initial meeting, an enduring friendship which lasted up to the time during which both of them had positions in Government in their countries," Sir John went on.

Outlining six points he said he intended to cover, he said they included the extent of Aitken's contrition, and the consequences of the trial on his health, and on his family.

"If anyone supposes I am here to follow the slimy trail of every red herring which has been drawn across this case, they will be disappointed," he told the court.

Sir John said Aitken had planned to meet Prince Mohammed at the Paris Ritz on Friday 17 for dinner.

But Aitken was delayed because of an official visit for the reburial of General Wladyslaw Sikorski in Poland, and the appointment was cancelled.

The prince had to return to Geneva, and arrangements were made to hold the meeting there on Sunday, which was where and when it eventually took place, Sir John told the Old Bailey.

The bill at the Ritz

Aitken's bill at the Ritz was paid because of the "hospitality not untypical of Arabs", Sir John said. The bill was only a small sum to the Arabs and to Aitken at that time.

Sir John said it was this conversation about the bill which was the main cause of Aitken's downfall, but details of the conversation had "vanished long ago into the ether".

He added: "When later he realised the trap in which he had caused himself to fall, he began to tell a series of lies and half-truths which nearly six years later have brought him before your Lordship and into the dock of the Old Bailey."

Defence talks

He said when Aitken and the prince finally met in Geneva, they discussed Saudi Arabian security issues, especially the activities of Russian submarines as part of Iran's new arsenal of weapons.

"To meet this threat the Royal Navy had offered to lease to Saudi Arabia four Upholder submarines that were surplus to the Royal Navy's requirements," Sir John said.

"It's perhaps important to add in view of allegations made subsequently about the weekend that those Upholder discussions involved government to government negotiations or navy to navy leasing arrangements which had nothing to do with third party contractors, or businessmen or middle men or commission men or anyone else."

Sir John said Aitken had provided "generous and reciprocal" hospitality over a period of time, and it was a moot point whether the bill-paying incident had breached the guidance for ministers.

Allegations of sleaze

But the questioning from the newspaper had come at the height of "Tory sleaze" allegations and Aitken felt under pressure to keep his reputation clean.

The source of the tip-off to the Guardian had been Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of the Ritz, who had initially alleged that £1 million in cash was shared out at the meeting with Mark Thatcher and others.

Sir John said: "The allegation as to the meeting was simply untrue. The defendant has never been paid in cash or in kind for any arms deal."

It was to Aitken's "everlasting regret" that he had lied about who paid the bill - he had done so after speaking to Ayas who was under pressure from his employers to avoid publicity.

He was in a dilemma when later more allegations were made against him - he felt he had to clear his name with the libel action. Three of the allegations had been dropped during the course of that trial.

Sir John said Aitken felt he had no choice but to launch libel action against the Guardian despite the fact that it could expose him to admitting that he had lied about the Ritz bill.

He had been accused of serious offences, including corruption and arranging prostitutes for Arab friends, which he felt compelled to defend.

"He was faced with a very genuine dilemma," said the QC. "To say nothing and allow very serious allegations, the falsity of which he believed he could prove, to go unchallenged or to fight them and risk that in the Ritz bill he would have to tell a lie."

Questioned by the judge

The judge questioned why Aitken had not come clean about the bill at the time and then gone on to challenge the other points.

That, said Sir John, was not realistically an option because he had already said too much about the weekend at the Ritz to go back on his word and expect to be taken seriously.

Untrue allegations

Several of the allegations which had been made against him were later dropped, notably the claim that he had arranged prostitutes for Arab contacts.

It was also clearly untrue, said Sir John, that Aitken had tried to conceal his contacts in the Middle East and indeed the fact was well known by many of his parliamentary colleagues.

His former secretary, Valerie Scott, who had spoken to the Guardian and contributed to his downfall, had written to Aitken in January this year.

Her letter said: "I am sorry to say that the consequence of my interviews and witness statement was that they did contain many inaccuracies. Some of those were misrepresentations, some were mis-recollections, others were mistakes and others were caused by my words being taken out of context and being used in a way that now makes me feel uncomfortable."

She said her words had been "manipulated" into being unfair to Aitken in the articles and programme.